The Ledgers of Baldr: 4E144-4E147
Actions Hall of the Five 1) Gojac creeps up behind Rucahn while Rucahn does his mid-afternoon tome-pondering. Gojac stabs him repeatedly in the back. Rucahn slumps over in his chair, a sigh leaving his body. Gojac walks around the chair to see Rucahn leaning into his hands, rubbing his temple. He sighs again. "Are you quite through?" Gojac sticks the shiv in Rucahn's chest again and walks away. Gojac goes back to his previous work with flying. He creates a new test dummy, Icarus II, the first one having died of old age during Rucahn's interruption. 2) Garma practices her teleportation skills by attempting to send people back to The Halls of the Five. The people of Corde offer her snake-like people to practice her teleportation on, telling her that "they can't feel suffocation anyway" (Research teleportation) 3) Kellus is convinced that the Shrine Titans are still burdened with bugs and inefficiencies from Gojac's reckless methods, but he doesn't know what they are. He takes a herd of Shrine Titans out with him to take new territory to watch what they do and what they could be doing better. (Expansion) 4) Rucahn, shiv still in his chest, takes a Shrine Titan with him to see what he can find in the southern mountains. Mu'lakka 1) Tech: Sailors continue to slave away with the plated hull attempting to get it reproducible. 2) Tech: Sailors experiment with a ship design that would put a platform on top of masts to allow for more men to watch from above. After all, two eyes are better than one, and the men think that if that is the case then ten eyes are probably better than two. 3) Expansion: The chief leads his men in an all-out assault on the big island to appease the angry gods by quelling the insolent tribesmen who had so long rejected the superior ways of the Mu'lakka. 4) Culture: To appease the evidently very angry gods, an especially penitent group of Mu'lakka attempt to build an obsidian shrine on the cooled flows of lava beneath the Billowing Mountain to offer prayers of repentance and supplication. The Ashelani Dominion 1) The Ashelani carefully study the fishing methods of the Mu'lakka in an attempt to bring in their own harvest from the seas. Seeing the effectiveness of their nets, the Queen theorizes that the webbing between the tentacles of the Nautilisks could be used the same way to catch large schools. (tech) 2) The Queen sings a song of the ocean, based on the thoughts of the nautilisks and begins to raise a navy, (-30 wealth, +culture) one that will swim deep beneath the waves. 3) The depths to which the nautilisks dive is explored, searching for other large forms of life that live deep under the ocean that could be tamed or hunted for food. (tech) Ignati In a furious effort to resuscitate the Ignati's proud hunting tradition and finally unlock the thunder-spears remaining secrets, Chimeryx pours a frightful amount of his nations money and effort into making said spear distributable (Tech x3, Walter let me know if that's not allowed and I'll change it). In lieu of the ever-expanding borders of the United Tribes of Ignis, he decides to break ground on training squadrons of ground-assault fighters. Fighting in small units, these Ignati warriors are to swoop down on their opponents, letting loose a rain of throwing spears before joining their quarry melee combat. Eager young recruits tattoo their wings with the army’s unofficial insignia: a flaming spear buried through a skull (Army). After issuing the orders from his palace, Chimeryx does something peculiar: leaving his guards and attendants behind, he walks alone into the Great Forest. It feels good to taste the air again; hear the murmur of the trees. He breathes in, and in his breath he feels the slow intake of air of a thousand trees around him. He has no destination in mind; only a goal. He will wander the Forest, going from town to town until he has a leader for his army. Old or young, wealthy or poor, Chimeryx vows to give a fair judgment to every man. Deep down, he realizes the importance selecting a commander he can trust. If he fails, and the wrong warrior takes on the mantle of general, his army could become a rogue force; a pestilence that would rip the Ignati apart. All his work, these years of careful planning, will have been for naught. But it is several miles to the next village. There is time enough for worrying later. Chimeryx exhales, and walks deeper into the forest. Stinheim The Stinheim clan recognizes the need for a weapon to be created that can give the dwarves an advantage over their neighbors, and begin development of the sarissa (techx2, paying 60 to add +2, total bonus is +7). They also begin work on a new mine, in search of a material that can be incorporated into the new weapon design, one which they have found only traces of before. Adamantium. (x2, pay 90 to add +3 to best roll, when including engineering thats +8) Rhiam Reich Duke Eckard recognizes the threat the Hunger presents, and demands the creation of a second grad army of the Reich(1 ARMY) After tasting some particularly good brews from the Stinheim Clan, the dwarves of the Reich attempt to create some of their own unique brewing techniques. The goal is to create a type of drink that is not only delicious, but that also can have magical effects on the drinker. These brews shall be known as "potions," or "Whiskey."(2 tech) The Reich continues attempts to domesticate the local boar populations, as is custom. The Boar are unimpressed. (3 Boar) A squad of scouts are sent down south to investigate the hunger.(4 tech) Derult Derultian clockwork engines keep on moving as they actuate into another long day. As Derultians toil away in the iron and salt mines, they begin to research new ways to refine salt and iron in order to make better quality products (income, 1&2). As the Derultians understand little about the rust besides that it is harmful to them, they decide to construct stronger weapons so that they can defend themselves from it. They research how to strengthen their armor and weapons by supplementing the alloy with iron from the mines (Military, 3&4). Results: The Halls of the Five: 12, 19, 14, 14 Icarus II, a particularly tempestuous firebear with a musculature adjusted for flight, has its wings grafted on to its back and then soars away, never to be seen again. At this point, Gojac takes a break to stab Rucahn some more. At least the Creator is now certain that his wings are capable of long-term flight (2 more successes). Meanwhile, on the strange planet, Garma has teleported literally thousands of lizardpeople into space. Of these thousands, she estimates that maybe five or six have made it onto Celtanus, and that the rest have probably exploded into gelatinous reptile giblets in the unforgiving black void. She doesn’t know why she keeps doing it, but she realizes later that lizardfolk are immensely fun to kill. Modifying her spell, she is able to successfully teleport to back to Celtanus with Qol, his brother, and a small village of Cordishmen. Your gods are unaccustomed to seeing this many people in their long-dead kingdom, and the culture shock is a bit much for many of the humans to take in. Still, the teleportation spell is nearly solidified (1 more success). Kellus, eager to test out the shrine titans and also get away from the new humans for a bit, journeys to the southeast with one of the giant, spherical, hyper-intelligent creatures. Inside the core of the titan, Kellus casts several binding spells over the land so that it can be used as a mana source (-10 wealth, +6 income). Meanwhile, Rucahn ventures south into the mountains, raising obelisks along the way (-10 wealth, +6 income), and comes across a single dwarf from the nearby kingdom of Urist, who greets the strange man and comments on the exquisite craftsmanship of the shiv that is lodged between his ribs. Rucahn gets the dwarf to draw a map of his kingdom in the sand before destroying him. The Mu’lakka Lands: 10, 11, 4, 13 Your sailors, under the supervision of Rak’min himself, are as of yet still unable to reproduce the hull as they don’t have access to the strange and luxuriant metals needed to craft it, metals which—your shamans suspect, have inherently magical properties and will be difficult to find. A ledger requesting the material components needed to make a replica hull has been compiled, and your Great Chieftain mandates that all trade ships in your fleets carry a copy with them so that they know what metals to look for. The chief engineer looks at the new platform design to be placed on top of your masts. “This is the fevered dream of a madman,” he says. “It would cut windflow and slow our ships down. And what’s the point of having ten men standing on top of the mast doing nothing?” He then gives Rak’min a lengthy lecture on how a ship is a precise machine and every crewmember needs to be able to do a huge variety of jobs, “not just stand topside scratching their asses.” Rak’min does not appreciate this, and he quietly makes up his mind to search for a new chief engineer, one whose loyalty and imagination outweighs his common sense. The expansion across the islands is a failure (-10 wealth), your people intent on appeasing the volcano and refusing to set sail until the shrine makes progress. The obsidian statue is under construction and commemorates the volcanic eruption, which your wise men say was the result of the birth of a new and angry god (1 more success). The Ashelani Dominion: 12, 20, 9, 12 Your krakens are now able to secrete vast underwater webs under the sea to catch fish, but retrieving the fish from the webs is almost more trouble than it’s worth. Still, there is a niche demographic of dwarfs who enjoy fish that’s been spit up from the bowels of your sea monsters, and some money does come in (+3 income). A large navy of chittering sea krakenoids is raised with ease, your breeding pods fully stocked with prime genetic material. The currently lie off your northern shores, occasionally skulking out of the water for brief, horrifying mating periods (-10 income). Your psychic melody of the seas seems to have no effect on the beasts, who haven’t been as fully integrated into the hive mind as the Carcinos have. No creatures have been found under the sea that rival your nightmare creatures in destructive power, but a series of small settlements have been found further north—settlements of primitive humans who have yet to be consumed. The queen is unsure why some humans are designated as not food when they are clearly food. They are just more talk-y, diplomacy-prone food. The Ignati Tribes: 20, 16, 7, 3 The spears have been completed and have been fully integrated into your fighting force, which now decimate local game with ease (Epic tech achieved! +5 military bonus. Epic tech cannot be traded). It has taken several years, but the mystery of the staff has finally been unlocked and can now be used to its full potential. Chimeryx, on the other hand, fails to recruit enough men for an army, but he is content simply wandering for a time and exploring the frontier of his kingdom. The forest is long behind him. Soaring over lake Anthryx with his thunder weapon in hand, Chimeryx stops to rest in a crag nestled in the foothills of a large mountain range. A noise makes him turn around, and on the rocks outside his cave he can see a man in a long black cloak staring into the entryway, a crude wooden knife protruding from his chest. Uninvited, he steps inside, and Chimeryx notices that he has a little human girl with him, a pale thing with frightened eyes. “Hello there,” the stranger says in perfect Ignati. “My name is Rucahn.” He follows Chimeryx’s eyes to the shiv in his gut. “I can’t remove it. There’s some pretty highball magical chicanery involved, and I won’t bore you with it.” Chimeryx sits in stunned silence as Rucahn picks up the thunder spear from the corner and hefts it in his hands. “I remember these,” he says after a little bit, seemingly oblivious to the Ignati’s reaction. He utters some words and the lightning blade extends. “Did you know we made them so that the energy can be—well, hang on, I’ll show you.” Chimeryx watches as the man utters another word and, in a blinding flash, the lightning tip of the spear shoots forty feet in an electrical arc, incinerating a nearby fir. Chimeryx’s jaw drops. Rucahn looks at him. “Yeah, even I have to admit that it’s kind of overkill.” (RP in a separate post) Stinheim: 12, 18, 24, 2 The sarissa is complete, and it far outclasses the old dwarfen short spears that were used in ages past. In battle formation with these spears, your dwarf armies will become a force to reckoned with (+3 military bonus, -60 wealth). Your mine is set up very quickly using the precise mathematics and engineering that has made your clan so famous, and there is adamantium in abundance, however, mining the incredibly durable metal in large quantities is currently beyond your workers’ capabilities, and more work is needed before there is enough of the metal to craft effective arms and armor (1 more success). King Stinheim has imposed a ban on brewing season until the mine is up and running, much to the dismay of your laborers, who now not only have to work five days a week but have to do it sober. Rhiam Reich: 10, 15, 5, 5 The ambitious Duke’s army is never raised; your people are too preoccupied with their phalanxes and their racism and what have you, and the urgency of the encroaching Hunger doesn’t seem to be high on peoples’ minds, what with your country finally enjoying prosperity for the first time. Whiskey production, though, has become relatively successful in the southern part of the Reich, and the fortunes of provincial whiskey barons lead to a rise in new money entering the nobility. Of course, this brewing technology has yet to be refined enough to make money on a large scale for your empire (1 more success). Your scouting parties sent south never return, and King Koragg, who spearheaded the initiative, fears for the worst as days upon days go by with no response from the dwarf boys who so readily volunteered, eager to prove themselves. Derult: 15, 14, 11, 6 The iron and salt refining techniques of your people have become steadily more efficient to the point where your nation now has an excess of them. This is the first time your nation has had a surplus of anything except misfortune, and if your people could feel happy, they would. Rusted Derultians work long hours in refining areas purifying iron (+6 income). In addition, plans for new warrior-type Derultians are being drawn up, your nation for the first time realizing that it might need to build additional models in order to expand and fight off the Rust. These new robots, however, are still in the planning stages, and more work will be needed before they can become a reality (2 more successes). Category:The Ledgers of Baldr